Tyra Banks just opened up about the gut-wrenching loss of her home in the recent wildfires that hit Los Angeles, revealing the moment she found out everything was gone.
While speaking on the Australian morning show “Sunrise” this Monday, Tyra shared the shock and disbelief that washed over her when she got the news that changed her life forever. The former host of “America’s Next Top Model,” Tyra Banks, shared that she and her partner, Louis Bélanger-Martin, lost their Los Angeles home to the wildfires. She opened up about why she had been hesitant to talk about the tragedy in public.
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“I just didn’t want to pull a lot of attention to me,” Banks said. “I feel like there’s a lot of people that need that attention. … But I can’t sit here and not tell the truth.”
“We were at a friend’s house here, and we were celebrating and having fun,” she recalled. “I kept checking my phone, not for my house, but for friends and family, making sure they were evacuating and everything. And then I asked my partner, I was like, ‘I’m seeing something here, what do you think?’ and he [nodded].”
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Even with the heartbreaking news, Banks decided to keep her cool and stay composed.
“I pulled it together and just didn’t say anything to my friends and just stayed in the moment,” she shared. “And then we went home, and we cried, and we had our moment.”
The Emmy-winning TV personality made it clear that she, Bélanger-Martin, and her 8-year-old son, York, mostly split their time between homes in New York and Australia, where a lot of their treasured keepsakes are kept safe.
“A lot of those memento-mementos are here and in New York, so I didn’t lose that, thank goodness,” she assured viewers. However, Banks acknowledged, “There were some mementos that we lost. … It’s tough.”
